Election Day tensions have yet to cease in the camps of vice presidential candidates Leni Robredo and BongBong Marcos as both claimed pole position in the VP race with less than 15% of the national votes remaining to be counted.
From May 8 to 12 (before and after Election Day), Filipinos sent over 1.1 million tweets in support of Leni versus a total of 1 million tweets in support of Bongbong.
Robredo?s Twitter conversation peaked at 940 tweets per minute at 3:27am May 10 as her camp reacted positively to her lead in the early voting results, while Marcos? Twitter conversation peaked at 1,100 tweets per minute at 3:22pm May 10 when his camp speculated about voting irregularities and pushed for a recount.
The race?s initial turnout looked like an even fight between the six VP candidates with Marcos taking the lead and Robredo behind him. Twitter conversations soared when Robredo?s numbers started increasing closely tying with Marcos, overtaking him overnight as votes from Visayas were already being transmitted.
As usual, Filipinos poked fun at the incident while others did not take too kindly to Robredo?s startling sprint to the lead.
Despite the humor surrounding the surprise, many from the Marcos camp demanded a recount using the hashtag, #RecountVP to express their sentiments.
One of the most Retweeted tweets was from the son of Marcos himself, Sandro Marcos, who had been actively campaigning for his father.
While the Marcos camp protested the early results of the elections, Robredo?s supporters stayed hopeful.
Some people also tweeted reminders to the public of the Martial Law era and warned them of possible consequences should another Marcos inch toward the presidential seat.
